Relativity Continued
We left my story of great adventure, well maybe not great adventure. More of an odd, everyday adventure with twists and turns. All I wanted to do is get our stock trailer painted. We started our quest at an up-scale, and I mean seriously up-scale paint shop, and he sent us to the sandblaster. The sandblaster assured us our painter would do a good job, but we may have to forfeit our first born to pay for it. I knew that from the cars sitting in his operating-room clean shop. However, the sandblaster knew of a “less expensive” paint shop. He called them, and explained to us how to get there.
After following some serious over-the-river and through-the-woods directions, and of course backtracking, we found the new paint shop. This was another falling down building. Instead of rusting machines surrounding the place, he had a really nicely painted camouflage truck and a couple of very, very good looking motorcycles. All this gave me faith he could paint an old, rusty horse trailer and I wouldn’t have to gibve . Just like the other guy, he explained that we would have to bring it over the same day the sand blasting was completed. I got that. However, he said, “I do know of a guy who could sand blast your trailer and spray it with primer.” Once primed, the trailer would be rust proof removing the time pressure. We received more directions and instructions to look for the place where the barn burned down.
There was no shop, actually no building of any kind, only ashes. The good news: no livestock was living in the barn when it burned. The bad news: the family was. The good news: everyone got out okay. The bad news: their stuff didn’t.
When we got there, the sandblasting guy was waiting for a concrete truck to pour a foundation for a new house where the barn had stood. Once he’d poured and leveled the foundation, he came over to talk to us. He said he could surely sandblast the trailer and spray the primer. But he could also paint it. He could do it all. All we had to do was drop it off, and pick it up. No panicked rushing from one shop to the other. No worry about rain. This man could finish it all himself. One stop shop. Although it took us several hours of detective work to find a guy to paint the trailer. And it was only four months after Ginger’s birthday.
In retrospect we probably shouldn’t have, but we told the guy there was no hurry. We wanted the trailer back, but we didn’t have what you’d call a tight schedule. We were going on vacation in three weeks. Ginger had arranged for people, animal sitters, to come by and feed and check on our two horses and a mule. It seemed a little much to ask these people to come over in horse trailers, so we liked to leave the trailer hooked up and pointed out in case someone had to go to the vet. We needed the trailer back before we left. But Ginger was scheduled to get a store-bought knee as soon as we returned from vacation. Thinking it might take a while after the operation before she could get back on her mule, we really wanted to take a ride before we left. All this meant that we’d love to get the trailer back in two and a half weeks. Even though it had taken me five months to start the trailer painting process, I saw no reason this guy couldn’t get it done in two weeks. After all, time is relative, and he lived in a faster county than we did.
Since I have three paragraphs of blog left, you probably know what happened next. The store where he bought sand for the blasting no longer sold it. The next store ran out of it. After he got the sand, he had trouble getting paint. Once he had sand and paint, it rained, and rained, and then, it rained some more. He managed to get his new house dried in, and the interior walls were coming along fine, but our trailer not so much. Thinking back, it was really our fault. We never should have told him there was no rush. To us, a rush would have been painting the trailer in a day and a half. We didn’t need it for two weeks. How can that be a rush? Apparently, rush is as relative as time.
Being positive people, we checked with him after a week. Then a week and a half. Then daily. There were a lot of reasons he couldn’t work on the trailer, and they changed every time we asked. We didn’t get it back before our trip. On our way out of town we assured him there was again, no rush, as long it was done when we got back in ten days.
It wasn’t. But of course, it didn’t matter. Ginger got her new knee, and we had our painted trailer in our driveway before she could ride again. It looked good. Well, it looked better, and Ginger was happy. And it only took six months after her birthday. Even though time is relative, maybe I should start working on next year’s present today.
